'Room-Temperature' Superconductor Replicated

[rcjordan]

https://twitter.com/pronounced_kyle/status/1742588127628361809

The two Chinese labs working on replicating LK-99 appear to have found a room-temperature superconductor.

At first blush, here's what's different from last time:

• it's more like "room temperature" than room temperature, the paper says 250K which is -10 F or -23 C. That's still HUGE IF TRUE, because we can get things that cold with liquid nitrogen

• we have actually discovered a superconductor at this temperature before, but it was at high pressure. This paper says it's potentially superconductive AT AMBIENT, NORMAL PRESSURE

• it has *already* replicated, with two separate labs in China confirming the results. Last time the big question was "will it replicate." And the answer this time seems to be "it already has"

[littleman]

I've been wondering a lot lately about what the big, transformative technology of the 21st century is going to be.  Maybe this is going to be one?

[ergophobe]

Interesting question Littleman.

I think the transformative tech of a given century is the nascent tech of the century before, sometimes even the century before that.

I think révolutions in biology could be the big thing for this century, but DNA was identified in the 1860s, it's structure elucidated in the 1950s, the first genome mappings in the 1990s, but it is now starting to show promise.

Similar with AI though on a shorter timeline.

But I think you're asking the more interesting question - what tech are we at best able to glimpse that will be revolutionary. Like nuclear power as seen in 1924. Einstein's work showed it to be possible, but it wasn't until 1938 that actual fission that converted mass to energy was observed.

[littleman]

Some more candidates:
AI*
Cold Fusion (I know, I know)
CRISPR
Quantum Computing
Nanorobotics

*the real thing, not what we have right now